Exciting Essendon forward Orazio Fantasia is on track to return to the Bombers’ line-up to face Carlton on Saturday.

While key forward Joe Daniher is set for a stint on the sidelines, the club was impressed by Fantasia’s efforts in the second half of Essendon’s VFL victory over North Melbourne last week and he is likely to be back to take on the Blues.

“Orazio played the second half in the VFL match, he got through that well,” Physical Performance Manager Justin Crow said in the SKINS Injury Update on Tuesday.

“He actually continued with more running at the end of that bit of match play to complete 14 kilometres in high speed, basically what he would normally do in a match.”

“We’re confident that if Orazio gets through all of his training this week that he’ll be available to play.”

It will be a welcome return for the speedy forward with fellow goalkicker Daniher staring at a minimum of four weeks out of the team after scans revealed early onset of osteitis pubis.

“With Joe’s long-term health and career being our biggest priority, in conjunction with Joe, we’ve made the decision to take him out of the program and give him a full rehabilitation to make sure that gets better,” Crow said.

“That will be a minimum of four weeks (on the sidelines), but we’ll be taking as long as required to make sure that Joe is fully recovered and available to play at his best.”

Key defender Mitch Brown is expected to put his hand up for senior selection after overcoming a calf injury, while small forward Josh Green’s recovery from a hamstring injury is “progressing well”.

“He completed a high-volume session last weekend.

“What we’re really waiting for is for sufficient healing to take place to take him up to high speed, that will happen over this coming weekend.

“We’ll put him back in the normal training program beyond that and expect him to be available not (for) this match, the one after (against Geelong).”

Crow said the club is being patient with speedy midfielder Travis Colyer as he slowly recovers from a foot injury.

“Trav’s been a bit slower than we expected. Obviously with a history of bone stress we’ve been taking our time building him up.

“At the moment Trav is tracking to return around about the bye (in round 13).”